1. Your main fandom of the year? Kuroshitsuji

2. Your favorite film watched this year? Hmm. Princess and the Frog is freshest in my mind, I did love that! But, I don't even remember what movies came out this year compared to last year, really. I suck. And all the stuff I watched on Netflix... so many movies. I can't pick a favorite, and if I picked one, it'd probably be wrong.

3. Your favorite book read this year? The Time Traveler's Wife, I suppose. Better than the Twilight Books, fo' sho'.

4. Your favorite album or song to listen to this year? I rediscovered my love for SR-71's album Now You See Inside.

5. Your favorite TV show of the year? Castle. OMFG.

6. Your favorite LJ community of the year? capslock_butler, perhaps.

7. Your best new fandom discovery of the year? Kuroshitsuji! Also, the rediscovery of fandom in general.

8. Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year? Myself? I wanted to get into more fandom stuff than I did.

9. Your TV boyfriend of the year? Richard Castle or Sebastian Michaelis.

10. Your TV girlfriend of the year? Alexis Castle, except she's a bit young for me. I don't care, I'll wait.

11. Your biggest squee moment of the year? Jake in America cosplay. He looked SO GOOD.

12. The most missed of your old fandoms? I miss the old Fruits Basket fandom, it was really the first one I found on my own and got involved in. And actually RP'd in. But I lost track of it when it got licenced and the scans got hard to find.

13. The fandom you haven't tried yet, but want to? Hetalia, but I'm intimidated by it. I'm looking for others.

14. Your biggest fan anticipations for the New Year? Gonna try to do Artist Alley stuff at the cons, we'll see how that goes.

From my mother:
-Droid Phone <3
From Greg:
-Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box
From Jake (stocking):
-Moyasimon Vol 1
-Hello Kitty "Fashion Notebook"
-Hello Kitty "Journal"
-Hello Kitty Ribbon
-Hello Kitty Playing Cards
-A Nice Eraser
From Jake (not in stocking)
-A Four Card Captchalogue Deck with Stack Modus (see MSPaintAdventures)
-Canon PowerShot A1100 IS Digital Camera
-An 8 gb memory card for that camera
-A Zagg protector for my Droid Phone
-Triple Chocolate Premium M&Ms
-Trail Mix
-A whole bunch of games on Steam (Including Monkey Island and Loom)
From Jake's Parents:
-A set of really nice soft colored pencils
-A rolling pin cover and gingerbread men cookie cutters
-$200 REI gift card (shared with Jake)
From Jake's Grandparents:
-$10 in crisp $1 bills
-Andes mints
From Jake's Aunt:
-Hot Cocoa Mix

☼ I've always wondered if there was a connection between the "Reading Rainbow" and the "Reading Railroad".

☼ Christmas has really snuck up on me this year. December has gone by so fast. I'm not nearly ready with all the presents. At least I have until after Christmas for a lot of people. I wanted to do cards, though, but now I don't really feel up to it.

☼ I got a shiny new Droid smartphone from my mother for Christmas. I love it so very very much. Still working on getting fun apps, weeding out the ones I don't like, etc.

☼ Jake got a promotion. Well, more accurately it's a "reassignment of priorities on existing duties with additional income from commission on the sales aspect", but it's easier to say it's a promotion. Sadly, he didn't get a bonus like that year, but he made a lot more money this year, so I'd rather that anyway.

☼ I re-started weight watchers two weeks ago. Already lost 6.3 pounds, though this week will be a difficult one. At least Christmas dinner will be at a Chinese restaurant instead of turkey and gravy and stuffing and potatoes and all that.

☼ Speaking of which, I also, thank goodness, do not need to drive 5 hours on either Christmas Eve after 6pm or Christmas Day to visit Jake's family because they're coming down to the front range instead. I was seriously dreading that.

☼ I set up my little tree last night, but apparently the ornaments were in a different box than I thought. I dunno if I want to make Jake go get the other box, it was kind of hard to reach, even for him. The lights make me pretty happy as is.

Yargh, Jake's sick, like really sick, sinus issues and such, which means I'll probably get sick within the next few days.

I spent last weekend at Mile Hi Con. It's such a different experience from Nan Desu Kan... The average age of MHC attendees is about 4 times that of the average age of NDK, for one. And about 1/7th the people, too. I think they're both fantastic conventions for their own subjects, and I'll continue to not only attend both, but work for them as well.

MHC was really inspiring, too. I really want to make a steampunk costume (well, I need one for Violet's wedding anyway), and I want to work on some artwork that goes beyond anime. I already spent most of this weekend working on a special craft project that inspiration hit out of nowhere and kept me awake on Friday night. I don't want to say a lot about it yet, though, but it should be done in a few days so I'll share pics then.

Aaaand DST ending has me off kilter a bit, so I think I need to go to sleep.

Been watching the crow... Heath Ledger and Brandon Lee were both 28 when they died prior to completion of the movies they were working on which involved "clown" makeup. What a weird coincidence.

I went to 93.3's Big Gig on Saturday. My initial response was "it's was too hot", but then the sun went behind the clouds, and it ended up being awesome.

We couldn't find a schedule of events, so we decided to show up pretty close to opening time, around 1pm. The first two hours were local bands only on a small stage. Since the main stage didn't open until 3, we had little choice but to lay on the grass and watch them. They were generally good, but the acoustics on the lawn weren't too great. Someone took a picture of my awesome gear pants without me knowing: Go to http://www.ktcl.com/cc-common/gallery/ Under "recently updated" go to "Big Gig 2009 Listener Photos" and go to Photo 6. That's me, and my pants.

We got up from that spot after a while to see who they were interviewing on "the couch", and then wandered over near a little pond that had omg cute little baby ducklings. I wish I had a camera with a telephoto lens because they were amazing. Of course, I probably couldn't have gotten a camera with a telephoto lens into the concert.

We went into the main stage when they opened. Our seats were better than I had guessed. We were about 11 rows back from the pit, dead center.

Synthetic Elements, Meas and Single File were all awesome, especially for being local. I wasn't too keen on Red Jumpsuit Aparatus and even less on the Spill Canvas. Goldfinger, however was incredibly awesome, they really knew how to rile up a crowd. And All American Rejects was just amazing. Tyson Ritter is one scrawny bitch, but in the way I like it. The tight pants with no underwear didn't hurt the image either. His stage antics got a bit annoying at times, but he was so much fun to watch during the songs.

We didn't stay for Bassnectar. Um, yeah. No.

All in all, it was well worth our money, even though we had to spend more on food because it was such a long event and they didn't allow coolers or outside food.

I spent a good amount of time last night looking through my old livejournal posts, starting on the first day I signed up. It was really interesting... I've matured a lot. I use a lot less silly fangirl speak. I posted a lot of cute things about how I thought I really had a chance with that boy Jake! And I posted a lot about depression.

There were a lot of things I don't even remember happening... like, apparently I got in a car accident that I have no recollection of. How did I forget that? Why can't I remember now?

Anyway, it was really neat, and so strange. Almost seems like a different person - but not.

Oh god, what a weekend. I still haven't recovered, I need another day off or something.

Original plan was to go see Single File and Sugar Ray at the "Taste of Ft Collins" festival thing... then we found out that our friend Gabe from South Dakota had a chance to come visit us because someone from there would be driving down to Colorado Springs and could drop him off in Boulder, so we thought... ok, he can come to this festival thing with us.

Well, then we find out that 3 of our other South Dakotan friends will also be going down to Colorado Springs. Also, they're going to the Renaissance Festival. Also, they bought Gabe a ticket. Also, we can see Single File at the Big Gig next month. Also, I am quite fond of RenFest. Also... oh screw it, we decided to go.

Guh, I miss them so much. Especially Nick and Davy, but everyone else I met up there, too. The Renfest was a ton of fun, everyone was in great spirits and nifty costumes, and we did our best to catch up between it all. I got so many hugs. Managed to sustain a minor injury from a particularly enthusiastic hug.

I also tried on a bunch of corsets, and decided I want one, though probably a Victorian/Steampunk style one rather than a renaissance one. I'm going to have to look into that more.

After that, we had a dinner to attend for a birthday. Had yummy Indian food. Went back to our place to play Arkham Horror, which took way too long and we still didn't finish it.

On Sunday, we decided to meet up with everyone again for lunch. Had a lot of fun again, made it even harder to say goodbye. I was almost tempted to get in their car and go back with them, but then I realized I don't much like South Dakota. Actually, at this point I would be willing to go visit if I had vacation time.

Jake and Gabe wanted to play some disc golf. Turned out to be way to warm for me, so I only made it through 4 holes. I'm still pretty good at putting, but I need to learn to throw sidearm so I can work on getting distance.

Gabe managed to soak his shoes and pants going after a disc, and decided he didn't want to drive back that day (he had driven separate from everyone else). Unfortunately, Jake and I desperately needed eye exams, because my glasses need replacing and the hours for exams are limited. So we left Gabe alone with out Manga collection to get that out of the way. By the time we got back, all three of us were too exhausted to do anything but veg and watch QI.

I really had a blast the whole weekend, but now I'm both exhausted and missing everyone again. I keep trying to convince people to move here, especially the people who have grown to hate South Dakota, but they all have excuses that really make me think they aren't really considering what's important to them.

At the very least, I need to make a point of keeping in touch better. I've been pretty lax on that the past year.

My hair is getting long again. I'm not sure if I should get it cut up cute or grow it out long again. I've had this dilemma the last 3 or so haircuts, so I usually get it cut, but only a bit. I definitely need another cut because the shape at the bottom is weird, but how short?

OMG I'm about to play the Sims 3!

Merf. The weekend went by fast.

On Saturday I went to the New Vista graduation slash reunion slash Rona's retirement party. A lot less peopel showed up than I thought would, but it was great to see the people I did see.

Rona and Diana were happy to see me, but neither of them could remember my name. Sadface. Pfouts walked by me on his way out without saying hi or anything. Pfft. I'll have to remember to stop by in the fall some time. Talked to Yvette and Spetzler though.

Seeing Cody was awkward, of course, but everyone else was fantastic. They all seem to be doing well. New Vista seems to have spawned a lot of teachers. Sean's kid is adorable. I talked to Loren for a long time. A bunch of people left to eat at the Southern Sun and I joined them later. Nobody at the Southern Sun seemed to want to take my order for food, so I decided not to push the issue and didn't order any, I didn't want to give them any money. So Loren and I went to Tokyo Joe's after, and talked more. Jake met up with us (he hadn't come with me, he had other plans that day). He was tired and out of it and we were talking about people he didn't know, so we departed. I need to keep in touch with Loren, though, it was really nice taking to him again.

Sunday we did errands, went to Anime club to watch Kuroshitsuji, wich confuses me so much after reading the manga, and went hom to watch 6 episodes of QI. God I love that show. Stephen Fry and Alan Davies are my RPS OTP. <3